Chevron Leaving California, So "Regulators (i.e. unelected lawmakers) Propose Seizing The Means of Production

 

FROM OIL WELLS TO OH WELL: California Loses Chevron.

Net zero, net new jobs: Choose one.

Bloomberg:

Chevron Corp., based in California since the days of kerosene lamps, is moving headquarters to Texas after years of fighting Golden State officials over strict environmental policies and costly regulations.

The move announced Friday will end the company’s 145 years of being based in the most populous US state. The shift prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to welcome Chevron to its “true home,” while a spokesperson for his California counterpart Gavin Newsom dismissed it as a “logical culmination” of a years-long transition by the oil giant.

Doubtless those workers losing their jobs or forced to relocate will be comforted by the thought that their fate is the “logical culmination” of a long process.

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Chevron’s CEO, Mike Wirth, is saying that the decision to move is not about politics, but about “what’s good for our company to compete and perform.”  In reality, it’s obviously about both. He has clearly been eyeing Texas for a while and describes Houston as “the energy capital of the world.” Bloomberg quotes Wirth as telling an audience in, well, Houston back in 2019 that “policies in California have become pretty restrictive on a lot of business fronts, not just the environment.”

And those policies could become even more restrictive in the formerly golden state: California Regulators Propose Gov’t Takeover Of Oil Refineries To Stave Off Energy Crisis.

“The deployment of ZEVs [zero-emission vehicles] and a robust mass transit system are critical for achieving the state’s climate goals, reducing local air pollution, and eventually eliminating dependence on the volatile global petroleum markets. As demand for gasoline shrinks, refineries may close or convert to processing clean transportation fuels,” the report states. “This will lead to fewer gasoline refineries, with increased market concentration and associated market problems that often accompany it.”

To address the market concentration issue, the CEC proposed a variety of state interventions, including setting up state-owned refineries.

“The State of California would purchase and own refineries in the State to manage the supply and price of gasoline,” wrote the study’s authors, with the scope of the initiative ranging from “one refinery to all refineries in the state.”

Back in 2008, City Journal’s Max Schulz referred to “California’s Potemkin Environmentalism.” Now the Sacramento is looking to make it official and go full Soviet. Or perhaps worse; earlier this year, Steve Hayward dubbed the state “The North Korea of the USA.” As he wrote, “Never mind the social tyranny the state has attempted to impose, such as strict vaccine mandates, legal sanctions for anyone who dissents from transgender ideology or uses the wrong pronoun, and attempted legal penalties for any physicians who dissent from official Covid ideology. Stick with just economics.”